Unlike California’s majestic rivers and massive dams and
conveyance systems, groundwater is out of sight and underground,
though no less plentiful. The state’s enormous cache of
underground water is a great natural resource and has contributed
to the state becoming the nation’s top agricultural producer and
leader in high-tech industries.
Groundwater is also increasingly relied upon by growing cities
and thirsty farms, and it plays an important role in the future
sustainability of California’s overall water supply. In an
average year, roughly 40 percent of California’s water supply
comes from groundwater.
A new era of groundwater management began in 2014 with the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which requires local
and regional agencies to develop and implement sustainable
groundwater management plans with the state as the backstop.
[T[o strike oil in America, you need water. Plenty of
it. Today, the insatiable search for oil and gas has
become the latest threat to the country’s endangered aquifers,
a critical national resource that is already being drained
at alarming rates by industrial farming and cities in
search of drinking water. The amount of water consumed by
the oil industry, revealed in a New York Times investigation,
has soared to record levels. … And now, fracking companies
are the ones scrambling for water. A 2016 Ceres
report found that nearly 60 percent of the 110,000 wells
fracked between 2011 and 2016 were in regions with high or
extremely high water stress, including basins in Texas,
Colorado, Oklahoma, and California.
… a conference held this past week at Fresno State, “Managing
water and farmland transitions in the San Joaquin Valley,” drew
a large crowd of growers and water district managers. The
event was sponsored by the Public Policy Institute of
California [PPIC], a nonpartisan group that provides analysis
on key issues facing the state.The PPIC’s report on the
Valley’s water situation makes clear the stakes: Even if
growers do everything right, a half million acres could go out
of production because of water-supply shortages. … Using
water wisely while re-purposing land properly will be the key
issue facing San Joaquin Valley farmers for years to
come. -Written by Tad Weber, The Bee’s opinion
editor.
Although [California] supported dry cleaners in the transition
away from PCE [perchloroethylene] through grants to buy new
cleaning machines and by offering training on how to safely use
other cleaning solvents or do wet cleaning with detergents,
many cleaners feel they’ve been left out to dry when it comes
to cleaning up the pollution often found under their businesses
and neighbor’s water supplies. .. A PCE cleanup typically
costs about $1 million to more than $10 million. The high
costs come from the extensive mapping of groundwater and soil
samples required to determine the extent of a PCE plume — which
can flow for several miles in groundwater under cities — and
the regular monitoring of how effective the remediation efforts
are.
Residents can be flooded with new hope now that 12 years of
planning is coming together to bring the [Tulare County]
community improved access to accessible, clean water. A new
well in Poplar had its groundbreaking on Monday, Sept. 18, to
celebrate the increased access to clean water in the area.
Poplar has been pursuing a new well for the last 12 years due
to the high level of contaminants in the water. After years of
planning, the community has now received assurance they will
have safe drinking water for years to come.
Even though California enacted sweeping legislation nearly a
decade ago to curb excessive agricultural pumping of
groundwater, new research predicts that thousands of drinking
water wells could run dry in the Central Valley by the time the
law’s restrictions take full effect in 2040. The study,
published this month in the journal Scientific Reports, casts
critical light on how the state is implementing the 2014
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. The research reveals
that plans prepared by local agencies would allow for heavy
pumping to continue largely unabated, potentially drawing down
aquifers to low levels that would leave many residents with dry
wells.
When California lawmakers enacted the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act in 2014, it was an effort to tame the wild, wild
west of water. Nearly a decade later, there’s been some
progress creating local sustainability plans, but Big Ag
corporations are still hogging water and bullying smaller
groundwater users. Look no further than the fight heating up in
the Cuyama Valley, where small farmers and rural residents are
calling for a boycott of carrots produced by a pair of big
corporate growers who use a lot of water in an increasingly dry
place. … The problem is that more water is being pumped
from the ground than
is being replenished. Cuyama Valley is one
of California’s 21 over-pumped, or
“critically overdrafted” basins.
Successful implementation of the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) is vital to the long-term health of the
San Joaquin Valley’s communities, agriculture, environment, and
economy. But the transition will be challenging. Even with
robust efforts to augment water supplies through activities
like groundwater recharge, significant land fallowing will be
necessary. How the valley manages that fallowing will be
paramount to protecting the region’s residents—including the
growers and rural, low-income communities who will be most
directly impacted by the changes. With coordinated planning and
robust incentives, the valley can navigate the difficult water
and land transitions coming its way and put itself on a path to
a productive and sustainable future.
The Arizona Water Banking Authority is exploring the
possibility of buying purified wastewater to distribute later –
which would be unprecedented. At the AWBA commission’s meeting
on Sept. 13, new bank manager Rebecca Bernat asked whether she
should look into the possibility of the bank using effluent
water credits. Until 2019, AWBA has only used excess Colorado
River water long-term storage credits. That’s for the Central
Arizona Project water stored in aquifers. Users can get the
water later during a potential shortage by pumping it back out.
There’s a new hotspot in the world of geothermal energy: a
seemingly sleepy valley in Beaver County. Its secret? The
valley sits on top of bedrock that reaches temperatures up to
465 degrees Fahrenheit. Joseph Moore, who manages the Utah
FORGE research project, pointed across a dirt parking lot to a
well being drilled at the University of Utah’s subterranean
lab. … The mission of the FORGE project — which stands
for Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy —
isn’t to produce its own electricity. It’s to test tools and
techniques through trial and error and, in the process, answer
a big question: Can you pipe cool water through cracks in hot
underground rock and create a geothermal plant almost anywhere?
Las Vegas isn’t just a hot spot for revelers. Thousands of
businesses, particularly from California, have moved to the
region over the past few decades, and the population is booming
alongside other Southwestern cities. All of that growth in a
region plagued by extreme heat, drought, and a dwindling water
supply raises tough questions for city and state officials who
want to spur economic growth without draining the Colorado
River dry. In one example of that challenge, Arizona’s governor
in June halted construction in areas around Phoenix, citing a
lack of groundwater.
The California Department of Water Resources awarded
multimillion-dollar grants to two groundwater subbasins in
Butte County. DWR announced that the Vina subbasin, which
includes Chico and Durham, and the Wyandotte Creek subbasin,
which covers the Oroville area, are among 32 subbasins that
will receive a total of $187 million to “help support local
sustainable groundwater management.” Vina and Wyandotte Creek
each received $5.5 million. The county’s third subbasin, Butte,
did not get a grant in the funding announced this week. Tod
Kimmelshue, chair of the Butte County Board of Supervisors and
a member of the Vina subbasin board, praised the state for
supporting local efforts.
Iron be gone. Manganese, away. A $14.2 million groundwater
treatment facility that scrubs iron and manganese from supplies
at a wellfield in El Rio has switched on. The plant will
improve drinking supplies for thousands of Ventura County
residents, including families living at Naval Base Ventura
County. On Wednesday morning, officials and dignitaries
celebrated the United Water Conservation District project at
its El Rio facility at 3561 N. Rose Ave., north of Oxnard.
… Wednesday’s gathering marked completion of the plant’s
first phase after construction started around February
2022. The facility treats supplies pumped from deep
wells. The first phase will treat up to 3,500 gallons of
groundwater per minute. Future phases can expand capacity to
about 8,250 gallons per minute.
Change is coming to the heavily agricultural San Joaquin
Valley. We know that a combination of climate change, new
environmental regulations, and especially the implementation of
the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) are
leading to a decline in water available for irrigation. (By
2040, overall farm supplies in the valley could drop by as much
as 20%—and irrigated cropland by nearly 900,000 acres.) But
what we haven’t known is how these changes could impact farms
of different sizes in the valley—and there is understandable
concern about how the shift will play out, particularly for
smaller farms that have fewer resources and capacity to adapt.
Pothole Thumb Meadow, a 5.65-acre groundwater-supported wetland
located at the westernmost end of Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite,
is undergoing restoration efforts. Yosemite’s wilderness
restoration team took action during the fall of 2022 to address
a significant issue—a large gully that had been impacting the
meadow’s health. The origins of this gully date back to the
late 1800s and can be attributed to various human activities,
including non-native sheep grazing, ditching, road building,
horseback riding, and camping. Initially, a small nick point
formed, and as water flowed over it, it gained speed, eroding
the soil. Over time, continuous erosion caused the nick point
to migrate upstream, resulting in a gully that is now up to 5
feet deep and 15 feet wide.
California will spend about $300 million to prepare a vast
groundwater and farming infrastructure system for the growing
impacts of climate change. California Department of Water
Resources announced Tuesday that it has awarded $187
million to 32 groundwater sub-basins, which store water for
future use that mainly flows from valuable snowmelt, through
the Sustainable Groundwater Management Grant
Program. Governor Gavin Newsom also announced
Tuesday that California’s Department of Food and
Agriculture will award more than $106 million in grants to 23
organizations, which will design and implement new carbon
sequestration and irrigation efficiency projects.
Arizona is one of the fastest-growing states in the U.S., with
an economy that offers many opportunities for workers and
businesses. But it faces a daunting challenge: a water crisis
that could seriously constrain its economic growth and
vitality. … Israel’s approach to desalination offers
insights that Arizona would do well to consider.
Cattle producers who own and manage land in Butte, Colusa,
Glenn, and Tehama counties are gravely concerned with the
approach adopted by Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSA’s)
in our respective basin/counties, reports the California Farm
Bureau. In each of those basins, the farm bureau claims
non-extractors, or de minimis users who only pump stock water,
are reportedly being assessed acreage fees by the respective
GSAs to generate the funding required to comply with the
state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Cattle
producers are predominantly rangeland operations that do not
use groundwater, except for watering livestock, and in fact,
serve as a net recharge zone for the basins.
Think of it as water in the bank for not-so-rainy days. To help
bolster reserves, the City of Roseville and Placer County Water
Agency (PCWA) recently amended their longstanding water
agreement to allow Roseville to purchase and “bank” more water
during “wet” years. … That additional water will be stored in
the region’s vast underground aquifers for Roseville’s use as
needed.
Kaiser, California’s largest healthcare provider, has agreed to
a $49 million settlement with the State Attorney General’s
Office and six district attorneys, including in Alameda County,
for illegally dumping hazardous waste, medical waste, and the
protected health information of more than 7,000 patients at
Kaiser facilities statewide, Attorney General Rob Bonta
announced on Friday. … [He said]: “Batteries containing
toxic, corrosive chemicals could leach into the surrounding
environment and pollute the soil and groundwater. Prescription
medications could leach into the water table and affect our
drinking water.” He added that hazardous chemicals could
start a fire that pollutes the air and harms the local
ecosystem.
Bill Leikam was reviewing footage from a wildlife camera he
placed along a Palo Alto creekbed recently when something
unfamiliar scampered across the screen. … Eventually, he
recognized the mysterious creature as a critically important
species that has long been missing from his beloved Baylands —
a mammal that California wildlife officials have hailed as a
“climate hero.” … For decades, developers,
municipalities and farmers focused on beavers as a problem that
required mitigation or removal. Now, the species known
as Castor canadensis is seen as offering myriad
benefits: It can help to mitigate drought and wildfires through
natural water management; it is considered a keystone species
for its ability to foster biodiversity; and it can restore
habitat through its ecosystem engineering.
A new but little-known change in California law designating
aquifers as “natural infrastructure” promises to unleash a
flood of public funding for projects that increase the state’s
supply of groundwater. The change is buried in a sweeping state
budget-related law, enacted in July, that also makes it easier
for property owners and water managers to divert floodwater for
storage underground. The obscure, seemingly
inconsequential classification of aquifers could have a
far-reaching effect in California where restoring depleted
aquifers has become a strategic defense against climate change
— an insurance against more frequent droughts and more variable
precipitation.
Renowned winemaker Jayson Woodbridge is suing Napa County for
well policies allegedly restricting access to groundwater at
four of his vineyards. The vineyards, Double Vee Properties
LLC, Caldera Ranch LLC, Hundred Acre LLC and Hundred Acre Wine
Group Inc., told the US District Court for the Northern
District of California on Tuesday that Napa County violated
their rights under the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits the
taking of private property without due process. The county’s
new well policies, which include reduced water use and
permitting criteria, “impair” the growers’ rights to access the
groundwater beneath their properties by requiring them to …
On Wednesday, Stockton East Water District and the California
Department of Water Resources (DWR) joined local and federal
officials to highlight a $12.2 million project that will
support groundwater recharge, water quality and habitat
restoration project along the Calaveras River. … The
event was held at the Bellota Weir Modification Project site on
the Calaveras River. Funded by DWR’s Urban Community
Drought Relief Program, the project will make conveyance
improvements and install a modern fish screen at the Stockton
East Water District’s Bellota municipal diversion intake on the
Calaveras River. The conveyance improvements would double the
amount of groundwater recharge per year and improve water
reliability and quality for the city of Stockton’s drinking
water. Additionally, the fish screen and new fishways will
restore fish habitats along the Calaveras River and allow safe
passage through the river for the threatened Central Valley
Steelhead and Chinook Salmon.
A new but little-known change in
California law designating aquifers as “natural infrastructure”
promises to unleash a flood of public funding for projects that
increase the state’s supply of groundwater.
The change is buried in a sweeping state budget-related law,
enacted in July, that also makes it easier for property owners
and water managers to divert floodwater for storage underground.
Roughly an hour from California’s Bay Area and less than a mile
from the Pacific Ocean, Kelli and Tim Hutton purchased a half
an acre property in the Central Coast town of Moss Landing last
summer. As with many others living in the area, they heavily
rely on their private well for water. After moving into the new
home with their newborn baby, the Huttons heard other residents
were concerned about high levels of saltwater intrusion, being
so near the ocean. Rising sea level and California’s whiplash
weather have been impacting their water table, with seawater
seeping in and causing pipes to corrode, making water
undrinkable.
The San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency (SGPWA), a Southern
California State Water Contractor, is planning a new set of
percolation basins to support growing demand for water storage.
SGPWA is planning the Brookside West Recharge Facility, which
would complement the agency’s existing Brookside East Recharge
Facility. Brookside West’s 62.5 acres would house approximately
25 acres of recharge ponds. The ponds, or basins, would
import water from the State Water Project and filter the water
down through layers of soil and rock to be stored underground.
The facility may also be used for local stormwater capture and
to recharge treated reclaimed water.
Landowners in the Cuyama Valley Groundwater Basin have been
fighting major agriculture producers, Grimmway Farms and
Bolthouse Farms, for their water rights. Everyone in the basin
was on track to cut water usage until the carrot growers filed
an adjudication in court against every landowner in the basin,
including the school district, temporarily halting the cutback,
and essentially leaving the courts with the decision on who
gets water rights in the basin. The Cuyama Valley Groundwater
Basin was designated as one of 21 basins or subbasins in
California that are in a state of critical overdraft. Local
Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSA), agencies under the
California Department of Water Resources, are responsible for
creating a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) to outline how
basins throughout the state will become sustainable by 2040.
Those plans then get updated every five years.
Earlier this month the Coastside County Water District Board of
Directors workshopped ideas for bringing recycled water to Half
Moon Bay. The district is in the early stages of a feasibility
study that will examine whether water from various sources,
including wastewater, could be used for agriculture or drinking
supplies. Throughout the process, CCWD must weigh the benefits
of diversifying local water sources with the costs of building
expensive infrastructure. Two months ago, the board agreed to
pay Water Works Engineers $299,977 to evaluate the region’s
hydrogeology, implementation options and permitting
feasibility. The district has applied for grants from the
Division of Financial Assistance that could pay for planning
and construction.
As implementation of the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) proceeds, it’s no secret that the San
Joaquin Valley will have to adapt to a future with less water
for irrigation. Our research shows that overall irrigation
supplies may decline by as much as 20% by 2040. Land uses will
have to change, and some have raised concerns that SGMA’s
implementation could put smaller farms at a disadvantage, given
their more limited resources and capacity. To gain insight on
these issues, we conducted a detailed geographical analysis of
cropping patterns and water conditions by farm size on the San
Joaquin Valley floor, using county real estate records on
ownership of agricultural parcels (individual properties of
varying sizes) to identify farms.
A difference of $38 million dollars in taxes to those in the
Indian Wells Valley hung in the balance as the Indian Wells
Valley Groundwater Authority discussed funding options for the
imported water pipeline project at the IWVGA’s board meeting on
Aug. 23. The mood of the room reflected the gravity of the
decision. Conversation slowed, political rivalries cooled, and
board members asked the same clarifying questions from subject
matter experts for a third or fourth time. Ultimately, too many
questions remained on such an important decision, and so the
IWVGA board tabled it until their next meeting on Sept. 13. No
further delays will be possible; the IWVGA will need to make a
decision at their September meeting.
Cattle producers who own and manage land in Butte, Colusa,
Glenn, and Tehama counties are gravely concerned with the
approach adopted by the Groundwater Sustainability Agencies
(GSAs) in our respective basin/counties. In every basin,
non-extractors (or de minimis users who only pump stock water)
are being assessed acreage fees by the GSA to generate the
funding required to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA). Cattle producers are predominantly
rangeland operations that do not use groundwater, and in fact,
serve as a net recharge zone for the basins.
Coal mining depleted areas of a critical aquifer in the Black
Mesa region of the Navajo Nation, but a federal agency didn’t
consider the losses environmentally damaging, researchers
concluded in a new study of the aquifer in northern Arizona.
The researchers detailed what they said were failures by the
federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement to
hold the Peabody mining company responsible for the
environmental effects of coal mining in the Black Mesa area.
The findings of the study, conducted by the Institutes for
Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, didn’t surprise Nicole
Horseherder, executive director of Tó Nizhóní Ání, a group
working to protect Black Mesa water, among other things.
Global warming has focused concern on land and sky as soaring
temperatures intensify hurricanes, droughts and wildfires. But
another climate crisis is unfolding, underfoot and out of view.
Many of the aquifers that supply 90 percent of the nation’s
water systems, and which have transformed vast stretches of
America into some of the world’s most bountiful farmland, are
being severely depleted. These declines are threatening
irreversible harm to the American economy and society as a
whole. The New York Times conducted a months-long examination
… In California, an agricultural giant and, like
Arkansas, a major groundwater user, the aquifers in at least 76
basins last year were being pumped out faster than they could
be replenished by precipitation, a condition known as
“overdraft,” according to state numbers.
Some places in the U.S. are already struggling
with groundwater depletion, such as
California, Arizona, Nebraska and other parts of the
central Plains. … [Jonathan Winter, an associate professor of
geography at Dartmouth College and an author on a new
study on future U.S. irrigation costs and benefits] used a
computer model to look at how heat and drought might affect
crop production by the middle and end of this century, given
multiple scenarios for the emissions of warming greenhouse
gases. In places like California and Texas where “everyone is
dropping their straw into the glass” of groundwater, as Winter
put it, current levels of irrigation won’t be viable in the
long term because there isn’t enough water. But use of
irrigation may grow where groundwater supply isn’t presently an
issue.
The plan to save the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin is failing.
In 2014, the California Legislature passed the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), requiring local communities
to form groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) to be
administered by groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs). If
you’ve been following the saga of the critically overdrafted
Paso Robles Groundwater Basin for the last 10 years, the
following news may depress you, but it probably won’t surprise
you. Some things have changed over that time—the basin now has
a groundwater sustainability agency and a groundwater
sustainability plan—but some other things have not, including
the mindset that still believes the problem can be solved by
voluntary conservation, supplemental water projects, and
digging deeper wells.
Some people view Napa County’s recent rejection of the proposed
Le Colline vineyard in the Napa Valley watershed as a breath of
fresh air. Others see it as an ill wind. Le Colline was
the first controversial land use decision facing the new-look
Board of Supervisors that took office at the beginning of the
year. On Tuesday, the board, by a 3-2 margin, sided with
environmentalists who objected to clearing forest and shrubland
for a 20.6-acre vineyard. Mike Hackett of Save Napa Valley has
over the years often been disappointed with county land use
decisions. This time, he liked the outcome and sees good things
to come. “I think a majority of the board finally understands
we are in a climate crisis,” said Hackett. “We can no longer be
removing forests in inappropriate locations for
vineyards.”
How much does it cost to grow an acre of romaine hearts in the
nation’s salad bowl? A new study from the University of
California at Davis Cooperative Extension gives us a
comprehensive breakdown for costs in the state’s Central Coast
region: Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Benito counties. The
short answer: for a 1,500-acre operation, growing costs,
$7,400, harvest costs $9,383, for a total of $16,793 per acre.
… Water costs (always a fascinating subject): low, at
$282 per acre-foot, reflecting the fact that Salinas Valley
crops rely more or less exclusively on groundwater. Total
irrigation costs are $582 per acre. Incidentally, although the
grower is responsible for pumping costs, any underground costs
(such as wells running dry) are borne by the landowner.
Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko announced on
Monday that charges have been filed against Daniel Conklin
Naumann for multiple felony counts of grand theft and theft of
utility services after diversion bypasses were discovered on
two commercial pumps that irrigated Naumann’s crops. The
Camarillo resident owns and operates Naumann Family Farms in
Oxnard and is a publicly elected board member of the United
Water Conservation District. For a portion of the period he has
been charged, Naumann was also an alternate board member of the
Fox Canyon Groundwater Management Agency.
Toxic chemicals have been leaking into the groundwater under
and around the San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport for
about five decades. It’s not the only airport in the state
dealing with this contamination, but it is the first to address
the problem with a formal plan. That’s because the
contamination impacted dozens of private wells for homes and
businesses. Many affected residents feel like the process is
moving too slowly. … But the foam is full of harmful
chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.
They’re often called “forever chemicals” because they don’t
break down in the environment. … Beginning in 2019, the
State Water Board ordered 30 airports in California to
investigate PFAS contamination. According to the board, all of
them showed some level of impact. As for the SLO airport,
a vast majority of the more than 70 wells in the area were
contaminated.
California produces millions of tons of hazardous waste every
year – toxic detritus that can leach into groundwater or blow
into the air. It’s waste that can explode, spark fires, eat
through metal containers, destroy ecosystems and sicken people.
It’s dangerous material that we have come to rely on and ignore
– the flammable liquids used to cleanse metal parts before
painting, the lead and acid in old car batteries, even the
shampoos that can kill fish. It all needs to go somewhere. But
over the past four decades, California’s facilities to manage
hazardous waste have dwindled. What’s left is a tattered system
of older sites with a troubling history of safety violations
and polluted soil and groundwater, a CalMatters investigation
has found.
Brown and Caldwell recently announced the addition of water
reuse technical leadership as Sandy Scott-Roberts joined the
firm as program management director to help California
communities tap into drought-proof drinking water sources.
Having spent most of her career at an internationally
recognized water district, Scott-Roberts has 20 years of
managing capital improvement projects, encompassing the
planning, design, and construction of water treatment
facilities, including pipelines, pump stations, recharge
basins, and injection wells. A career highlight includes
managing the final expansion of the 130 million gallons per day
Groundwater Replenishment System, the world’s largest water
purification system for indirect potable reuse.
Stanislaus County is planning an event in October for
collection of old pesticides that are stored on farmers’
properties. The Board of Supervisors gave approval Tuesday
evening to hold the four-county Pesticide Takeback Disposal
event Oct. 11-13. The county agricultural commissioner’s office
is organizing the state-funded event with Merced, Tuolumne and
Mariposa counties. … Storage of chemicals in older containers
raises safety issues and can lead to environmental
harm. Improper storage “increases the likelihood of
containers breaking down and leaking” and “release of pesticide
concentrates into the environment can (result in) harming
people, wildlife, water supply and the environment,” a county
staff report said.
A new underground mapping technology
that reveals the best spots for storing surplus water in
California’s Central Valley is providing a big boost to the
state’s most groundwater-dependent communities.
The maps provided by the California Department of Water Resources
for the first time pinpoint paleo valleys and similar prime
underground storage zones traditionally found with some guesswork
by drilling exploratory wells and other more time-consuming
manual methods. The new maps are drawn from data on the
composition of underlying rock and soil gathered by low-flying
helicopters towing giant magnets.
The unique peeks below ground are saving water agencies’
resources and allowing them to accurately devise ways to capture
water from extreme storms and soak or inject the surplus
underground for use during the next drought.
“Understanding where you’re putting and taking water from really
helps, versus trying to make multimillion-dollar decisions based
on a thumb and which way the wind is blowing,” said Aaron Fukuda,
general manager of the Tulare Irrigation District, an early
adopter of the airborne electromagnetic or
AEM technology in California.
It was exactly the sort of deluge
California groundwater agencies have been counting on to
replenish their overworked aquifers.
The start of 2023 brought a parade of torrential Pacific storms
to bone dry California. Snow piled up across the Sierra Nevada at
a near-record pace while runoff from the foothills gushed into
the Central Valley, swelling rivers over their banks and filling
seasonal creeks for the first time in half a decade.
Suddenly, water managers and farmers toiling in one of the
state’s most groundwater-depleted regions had an opportunity to
capture stormwater and bank it underground. Enterprising agencies
diverted water from rushing rivers and creeks into manmade
recharge basins or intentionally flooded orchards and farmland.
Others snagged temporary permits from the state to pull from
streams they ordinarily couldn’t touch.
This special Foundation water tour journeyed along the Eastern Sierra from the Truckee River to Mono Lake, through the Owens Valley and into the Mojave Desert to explore a major source of water for Southern California, this year’s snowpack and challenges for towns, farms and the environment.
Explore the Sacramento River and its tributaries through a scenic landscape while learning about the issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
Water Education Foundation
2151 River Plaza Drive, Suite 205
Sacramento, CA 95833
A pilot program in the Salinas Valley run remotely out of Los Angeles is offering a test case for how California could provide clean drinking water for isolated rural communities plagued by contaminated groundwater that lack the financial means or expertise to connect to a larger water system.
Managers of California’s most
overdrawn aquifers were given a monumental task under the state’s
landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act: Craft viable,
detailed plans on a 20-year timeline to bring their beleaguered
basins into balance. It was a task that required more than 250
newly formed local groundwater agencies – many of them in the
drought-stressed San Joaquin Valley – to set up shop, gather
data, hear from the public and collaborate with neighbors on
multiple complex plans, often covering just portions of a
groundwater basin.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape while learning about the issues
associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
Water Education Foundation
2151 River Plaza Drive, Suite 205
Sacramento, CA 95833
This tour traveled along the San Joaquin River to learn firsthand
about one of the nation’s largest and most expensive river
restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Hampton Inn & Suites Fresno
327 E Fir Ave
Fresno, CA 93720
An online
short course starting Thursday will provide
registrants the opportunity to learn more about how groundwater
is monitored, assessed and sustainably managed.
The class, offered by University of California, Davis and
several other organizations in cooperation with the Water
Education Foundation, will be held May 12, 19,
26 and June 2, 16 from 9 a.m. to noon.
Martha Guzman recalls those awful
days working on water and other issues as a deputy legislative
secretary for then-Gov. Jerry Brown. California was mired in a
recession and the state’s finances were deep in the red. Parks
were cut, schools were cut, programs were cut to try to balance a
troubled state budget in what she remembers as “that terrible
time.”
She now finds herself in a strikingly different position: As
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Region 9, she has a mandate to address water challenges across
California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and $1 billion to help pay
for it. It is the kind of funding, she said, that is usually
spread out over a decade. Guzman called it the “absolutely
greatest opportunity.”
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
This tour ventured through California’s Central Valley, known as the nation’s breadbasket thanks to an imported supply of surface water and local groundwater. Covering about 20,000 square miles through the heart of the state, the valley provides 25 percent of the nation’s food, including 40 percent of all fruits, nuts and vegetables consumed throughout the country.
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
This tour guided participants on a virtual exploration of the Sacramento River and its tributaries and learn about the issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
As California’s seasons become
warmer and drier, state officials are pondering whether the water
rights permitting system needs revising to better reflect the
reality of climate change’s effect on the timing and volume of
the state’s water supply.
A report by the State Water Resources Control Board recommends
that new water rights permits be tailored to California’s
increasingly volatile hydrology and be adaptable enough to ensure
water exists to meet an applicant’s demand. And it warns
that the increasingly whiplash nature of California’s changing
climate could require existing rights holders to curtail
diversions more often and in more watersheds — or open
opportunities to grab more water in climate-induced floods.
The San Joaquin Valley has a big
hill to climb in reaching groundwater sustainability. Driven by
the need to keep using water to irrigate the nation’s breadbasket
while complying with California’s Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act, people throughout the valley are looking for
innovative and cost-effective ways to manage and use groundwater
more wisely. Here are three examples.
Groundwater provides about 40
percent of the water in California for urban, rural and
agricultural needs in typical years, and as much as 60 percent in
dry years when surface water supplies are low. But in many areas
of the state, groundwater is being extracted faster than it can
be replenished through natural or artificial means.
Across a sprawling corner of southern Tulare County snug against the Sierra Nevada, a bounty of navel oranges, grapes, pistachios, hay and other crops sprout from the loam and clay of the San Joaquin Valley. Groundwater helps keep these orchards, vineyards and fields vibrant and supports a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy across the valley. But that bounty has come at a price. Overpumping of groundwater has depleted aquifers, dried up household wells and degraded ecosystems.
Since 1997, more than 430 engineers,
farmers, environmentalists, lawyers, and others have graduated
from our William R. Gianelli Water Leaders program. We’ve
developed a new alumni network
webpage to help program participants connect and keep in
touch.
An
online short course starting Thursday will provide
registrants the opportunity to learn more about how groundwater
is monitored, assessed and sustainably managed.
The class, offered by UC Davis and several other organizations in
cooperation with the Water Education Foundation, will be
held May 21 and 28, June 4, 18, and 25 from 9 a.m. to noon.
The bill is coming due, literally,
to protect and restore groundwater in California.
Local agencies in the most depleted groundwater basins in
California spent months putting together plans to show how they
will achieve balance in about 20 years.
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Our Water 101 Workshop, one of our most popular events, offered attendees the opportunity to deepen their understanding of California’s water history, laws, geography and politics.
Taught by some of the leading policy and legal experts in the state, the workshop was held as an engaging online event on the afternoons of Thursday, April 22 and Friday, April 23.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
The Water Education Foundation’s Water 101 Workshop, one of our most popular events, offered attendees the opportunity to deepen their understanding of California’s water history, laws, geography and politics.
Taught by some of the leading policy and legal experts in the state, the one-day workshop held on Feb. 20, 2020 covered the latest on the most compelling issues in California water.
McGeorge School of Law
3327 5th Ave.
Sacramento, CA 95817
A diverse roster of top
policymakers and water experts are on the
agenda for the Foundation’s 36th annual Water
Summit. The conference, Water Year 2020: A Year
of Reckoning, will feature compelling conversations
reflecting on upcoming regulatory deadlines and efforts to
improve water management and policy in the face of natural
disasters.
Tickets for the Water Summit are sold out, but by joining the waitlist we can
let you know when spaces open via cancellations.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
California experienced one of the
most deadly and destructive wildfire years on record in 2018,
with several major fires occurring in the wildland-urban
interface (WUI). These areas, where communities are in close
proximity to undeveloped land at high risk of wildfire, have felt
devastating effects of these disasters, including direct impacts
to water infrastructure and supplies.
One panel at our 2019 Water
Summit Oct. 30 in Sacramento will feature speakers
from water agencies who came face-to-face with two major fires:
The Camp Fire that destroyed most of the town of Paradise in
Northern California, and the Woolsey Fire in the Southern
California coastal mountains. They’ll talk about their
experiences and what lessons they learned.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
Atmospheric rivers, the narrow bands
of moisture that ferry precipitation across the Pacific Ocean to
the West Coast, are necessary to keep California’s water
reservoirs full.
However, some of them are dangerous because the extreme rainfall
and wind can cause catastrophic flooding and damage, much
like what happened in 2017 with Oroville Dam’s spillway.
Learn the latest about atmospheric river research and forecasting
at our 2019 Water
Summit on Oct. 30 in Sacramento, where
prominent research meteorologist Marty Ralph will give the
opening keynote.
With a key deadline for the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in January, one of the
featured panels at our Oct.
30thWater
Summit will focus on how regions around California
are crafting groundwater sustainability plans and working on
innovative ways to fill aquifers.
The theme for this year’s Water Summit, “Water Year 2020: A Year
of Reckoning,” reflects critical upcoming events in California
water, including the imminent Jan. 31, 2020 deadline for
groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) in high- and
medium-priority basins.
Our event calendar is an excellent
resource for keeping up with water events in California and the
West.
Groundwater is top of mind for many water managers as they
prepare to meet next January’s deadline for submitting
sustainability plans required under California’s Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act. We have several upcoming featured
events listed on our calendar that focus on a variety of relevant
groundwater topics:
Registration opens today for the
Water Education Foundation’s 36th annual Water
Summit, set for Oct. 30 in Sacramento. This year’s
theme, Water Year 2020: A Year of Reckoning,
reflects fast-approaching deadlines for the State Groundwater
Management Act as well as the pressing need for new approaches to
water management as California and the West weather intensified
flooding, fire and drought. To register for this can’t-miss
event, visit our Water Summit
event page.
Registration includes a full day of discussions by leading
stakeholders and policymakers on key issues, as well as coffee,
materials, gourmet lunch and an outdoor reception by the
Sacramento River that will offer the opportunity to network with
speakers and other attendees. The summit also features a silent
auction to benefit our Water Leaders program featuring
items up for bid such as kayaking trips, hotel stays and lunches
with key people in the water world.
Summer is a good time to take a
break, relax and enjoy some of the great beaches, waterways and
watersheds around California and the West. We hope you’re getting
a chance to do plenty of that this July.
But in the weekly sprint through work, it’s easy to miss
some interesting nuggets you might want to read. So while we’re
taking a publishing break to work on other water articles planned
for later this year, we want to help you catch up on
Western Water stories from the first half of this year
that you might have missed.
Our 36th annual
Water Summit,
happening Oct. 30 in Sacramento, will feature the theme “Water
Year 2020: A Year of Reckoning,” reflecting upcoming regulatory
deadlines and efforts to improve water management and policy in
the face of natural disasters.
The Summit will feature top policymakers and leading stakeholders
providing the latest information and a variety of viewpoints on
issues affecting water across California and the West.
One of California Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s first actions after taking office was to appoint Wade
Crowfoot as Natural Resources Agency secretary. Then, within
weeks, the governor laid out an ambitious water agenda that
Crowfoot, 45, is now charged with executing.
That agenda includes the governor’s desire for a “fresh approach”
on water, scaling back the conveyance plan in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and calling for more water recycling, expanded
floodplains in the Central Valley and more groundwater recharge.
Groundwater helped make Kern County
the king of California agricultural production, with a $7 billion
annual array of crops that help feed the nation. That success has
come at a price, however. Decades of unchecked groundwater
pumping in the county and elsewhere across the state have left
some aquifers severely depleted. Now, the county’s water managers
have less than a year left to devise a plan that manages and
protects groundwater for the long term, yet ensures that Kern
County’s economy can continue to thrive, even with less water.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Although Santa Monica may be the most aggressive Southern California water provider to wean itself from imported supplies, it is hardly the only one looking to remake its water portfolio.
In Los Angeles, a city of about 4 million people, efforts are underway to dramatically slash purchases of imported water while boosting the amount from recycling, stormwater capture, groundwater cleanup and conservation. Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 announced a plan to reduce the city’s purchase of imported water from Metropolitan Water District by one-half by 2025 and to provide one-half of the city’s supply from local sources by 2035. (The city considers its Eastern Sierra supplies as imported water.)
Imported water from the Sierra
Nevada and the Colorado River built Southern California. Yet as
drought, climate change and environmental concerns render those
supplies increasingly at risk, the Southland’s cities have ramped
up their efforts to rely more on local sources and less on
imported water.
Far and away the most ambitious goal has been set by the city of
Santa Monica, which in 2014 embarked on a course to be virtually
water independent through local sources by 2023. In the 1990s,
Santa Monica was completely dependent on imported water. Now, it
derives more than 70 percent of its water locally.
The whims of political fate decided
in 2018 that state bond money would not be forthcoming to help
repair the subsidence-damaged parts of Friant-Kern Canal, the
152-mile conduit that conveys water from the San Joaquin River to
farms that fuel a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy along
the east side of the fertile San Joaquin Valley.
The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.
These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.
We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:
This 2-day, 1-night tour offered participants the opportunity to
learn about water issues affecting California’s scenic Central
Coast and efforts to solve some of the challenges of a region
struggling to be sustainable with limited local supplies that
have potential applications statewide.
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
In 1983, a landmark California Supreme Court ruling extended the public trust doctrine to tributary creeks that feed Mono Lake, which is a navigable water body even though the creeks themselves were not. The ruling marked a dramatic shift in water law and forced Los Angeles to cut back its take of water from those creeks in the Eastern Sierra to preserve the lake.
Now, a state appellate court has for the first time extended that same public trust doctrine to groundwater that feeds a navigable river, in this case the Scott River flowing through a picturesque valley of farms and alfalfa in Siskiyou County in the northern reaches of California.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape as participants learned about the
issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Tour
participants got an on-site update of Oroville Dam spillway
repairs.
One of our most popular events, our annual Water 101 Workshop
details the history, geography, legal and political facets
of water in California as well as hot topics currently facing the
state.
Taught by some of the leading policy and legal experts in the
state, the one-day workshop on Feb. 7 gave attendees a
deeper understanding of the state’s most precious natural
resources.
Optional Groundwater Tour
On Feb. 8, we jumped aboard a bus to explore groundwater, a key
resource in California. Led by Foundation staff and groundwater
experts Thomas
Harter and Carl Hauge, retired DWR chief hydrogeologist, the
tour visited cities and farms using groundwater, examined a
subsidence measuring station and provided the latest updates
on the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
McGeorge School of Law
3327 5th Ave.
Sacramento, CA 95817
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
More than a decade in the making, an
ambitious plan to deal with the vexing problem of salt and
nitrates in the soils that seep into key groundwater basins of
the Central Valley is moving toward implementation. But its
authors are not who you might expect.
An unusual collaboration of agricultural interests, cities, water
agencies and environmental justice advocates collaborated for
years to find common ground to address a set of problems that
have rendered family wells undrinkable and some soil virtually
unusable for farming.
As California embarks on its unprecedented mission to harness groundwater pumping, the Arizona desert may provide one guide that local managers can look to as they seek to arrest years of overdraft.
Groundwater is stressed by a demand that often outpaces natural and artificial recharge. In California, awareness of groundwater’s importance resulted in the landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014 that aims to have the most severely depleted basins in a state of balance in about 20 years.
Spurred by drought and a major
policy shift, groundwater management has assumed an unprecedented
mantle of importance in California. Local agencies in the
hardest-hit areas of groundwater depletion are drawing plans to
halt overdraft and bring stressed aquifers to the road of
recovery.
Along the way, an army of experts has been enlisted to help
characterize the extent of the problem and how the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014 is implemented in a manner
that reflects its original intent.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
California voters may experience a sense of déjà vu this year when they are asked twice in the same year to consider water bonds — one in June, the other headed to the November ballot.
Both tackle a variety of water issues, from helping disadvantaged communities get clean drinking water to making flood management improvements. But they avoid more controversial proposals, such as new surface storage, and they propose to do some very different things to appeal to different constituencies.
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape as participants learned about the
issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Tour
participants got an on-site update of repair efforts on the
Oroville Dam spillway.
Participants of this tour snaked along the San Joaquin River to
learn firsthand about one of the nation’s largest and most
expensive river restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Groundwater replenishment happens
through direct recharge and in-lieu recharge. Water used for
direct recharge most often comes from flood flows, water
conservation, recycled water, desalination and water
transfers.
One of the wettest years in California history that ended a
record five-year drought has rejuvenated the call for new storage
to be built above and below ground.
In a state that depends on large surface water reservoirs to help
store water before moving it hundreds of miles to where it is
used, a wet year after a long drought has some people yearning
for a place to sock away some of those flood flows for when they
are needed.
Sinkholes are caused by erosion of
rocks beneath soil’s surface. Groundwater dissolves soft
rocks such as gypsum, salt and limestone, leaving gaps in the
originally solid structure. This is exacerbated when water is
acidic from contact with carbon dioxide or acid rain. Even
humidity can play a major role in destabilizing water
underground.
Irrigation is the artificial supply
of water to grow crops or plants. Obtained from either surface or groundwater, it optimizes
agricultural production when the amount of rain and where it
falls is insufficient. Different irrigation
systems are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but in
practical use are often combined. Much of the agriculture in
California and the West relies on irrigation.
The United States
Geographical Survey (USGS) defines freshwater as containing
less than 1,000 milligrams per liter dissolved solids. However,
500 milligrams per liter is usually the cutoff for municipal and
commercial use. Most of the Earth’s water is saline, 97.5
percent with only 2.5 percent fresh.
Springs are where groundwater becomes surface water, acting as openings
where subsurface water can discharge onto the ground or directly
into other water bodies. They can also be considered the
consequence of an overflowing
aquifer. As a result, springs often serve as headwaters to streams.
Potable water, also known as
drinking water, comes from surface and ground sources and is
treated to levels that that meet state and federal standards for
consumption.
Water from natural sources is treated for microorganisms,
bacteria, toxic chemicals, viruses and fecal matter. Drinking
raw, untreated water can cause gastrointestinal problems such as
diarrhea, vomiting or fever.
Extensometers are among the most valuable devices hydrogeologists
use to measure subsidence, but most people – even water
professionals – have never seen one. They are sensitive and
carefully calibrated, so they are kept under lock and key and are
often in remote locations on private property.
During our California
Groundwater Tour Oct. 5-6, you will see two types of
extensometers used by the California Department of Water
Resources to monitor changes in elevation caused by groundwater
overdraft.
Flowing into the heart of the Mojave Desert, the Mojave River
exists mostly underground. Surface channels are usually dry
absent occasional groundwater surfacing and flooding
from extreme weather events like El Niño.
Alluvium generally refers to the clay, silt, sand and gravel that
are deposited by a stream, creek or other water body.
Alluvium is found around deltas and rivers, frequently
making soils very fertile. Alternatively, “colluvium” refers to
the accumulation at the base of hills, brought there from runoff
(as opposed to a water body). The Oxnard Plain in Ventura
County is a visible alluvial plain, where floodplains have
drifted over time due to gradual deposits of alluvium, a feature
also present in Red Rock Canyon State Park in Kern County.
A new era of groundwater management
began in 2014 with the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA), which aims for local and regional agencies
to develop and implement sustainable groundwater management
plans with the state as the backstop.
SGMA defines “sustainable groundwater management” as the
“management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be
maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without
causing undesirable results.”
This issue looks at remote sensing applications and how satellite
information enables analysts to get a better understanding of
snowpack, how much water a plant actually uses, groundwater
levels, levee stability and more.
This handbook provides crucial
background information on the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act, signed into law in 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown. The handbook
also includes a section on options for new governance.
This 2-day, 1-night tour traveled through Inland
Southern California to learn about the region’s efforts in
groundwater management, recycled water and other drought-proofing
measures.
This 2-day, 1-night tour traveled from the
Sacramento region to Napa Valley to view sites that explore
groundwater issues. Topics included groundwater quality,
overdraft and subsidence, agricultural use, wells, and regional
management efforts.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater is an in-depth,
easy-to-understand publication that provides background and
perspective on groundwater. The guide explains what groundwater
is – not an underground network of rivers and lakes! – and the
history of its use in California.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Rights Law, recognized as
the most thorough explanation of California water rights law
available to non-lawyers, traces the authority for water flowing
in a stream or reservoir, from a faucet or into an irrigation
ditch through the complex web of California water rights.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at California
groundwater and whether its sustainability can be assured by
local, regional and state management. For more background
information on groundwater please refer to the Foundation’s
Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
groundwater management and the extent to which stakeholders
believe more efforts are needed to preserve and restore the
resource.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” in California. Much of the information
in the article was presented at a conference hosted by the
Groundwater Resources Association of California.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
groundwater banking, a water management strategy with appreciable
benefits but not without challenges and controversy.
This printed issue of Western Water features a
roundtable discussion with Anthony Saracino, a water resources
consultant; Martha Davis, executive manager of policy development
with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency and senior policy advisor
to the Delta Stewardship Council; Stuart Leavenworth, editorial
page editor of The Sacramento Bee and Ellen Hanak, co-director of
research and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of
California.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at some of
the pieces of the 2009 water legislation, including the Delta
Stewardship Council, the new requirements for groundwater
monitoring and the proposed water bond.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
desalination – an issue that is marked by great optimism and
controversy – and the expected role it might play as an
alternative water supply strategy.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the Russian and
Santa Ana rivers – areas with ongoing issues not dissimilar to
the rest of the state – managing supplies within a lingering
drought, improving water quality and revitalizing and restoring
the vestiges of the native past.
This printed copy of Western Water examines California’s drought
– its impact on water users in the urban and agricultural sector
and the steps being taken to prepare for another dry year should
it arrive.
Statewide, groundwater provides about 30 percent of California’s
water supply, with some regions more dependent on it than others.
In drier years, groundwater provides a higher percentage of the
water supply. Groundwater is less known than surface water but no
less important. Its potential for helping to meet the state’s
growing water demand has spurred greater attention toward gaining
a better understanding of its overall value. This issue of
Western Water examines groundwater storage and its increasing
importance in California’s future water policy.
This issue of Western Water examines the issue of California
groundwater management, in light of recent attention focused on
the subject through legislative actions and the release of the
draft Bulletin 118. In addition to providing an overview of
groundwater and management options, it offers a glimpse of what
the future may hold and some background information on
groundwater hydrology and law.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
20-minute DVD that explains the problem with polluted stormwater,
and steps that can be taken to help prevent such pollution and
turn what is often viewed as a “nuisance” into a water resource
through various activities.
Many Californians don’t realize that when they turn on the
faucet, the water that flows out could come from a source close
to home or one hundreds of miles away. Most people take their
water for granted; not thinking about the elaborate systems and
testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state. Where drinking water comes from,
how it’s treated, and what people can do to protect its quality
are highlighted in this 2007 PBS documentary narrated by actress
Wendie Malick.
A 30-minute version of the 2007 PBS documentary Drinking Water:
Quenching the Public Thirst. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues surrounding the elaborate systems
and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
This 7-minute DVD is designed to teach children in grades 5-12
about where storm water goes – and why it is so important to
clean up trash, use pesticides and fertilizers wisely, and
prevent other chemicals from going down the storm drain. The
video’s teenage actors explain the water cycle and the difference
between sewer drains and storm drains, how storm drain water is
not treated prior to running into a river or other waterway. The
teens also offer a list of BMPs – best management practices that
homeowners can do to prevent storm water pollution.
Fashioned after the popular California Water Map, this 24×36 inch
poster was extensively re-designed in 2017 to better illustrate
the value and use of groundwater in California, the main types of
aquifers, and the connection between groundwater and surface
water.
Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch
poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural
hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants,
rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation.
Excellent for elementary school classroom use.
As the state’s population continues to grow and traditional water
supplies grow tighter, there is increased interest in reusing
treated wastewater for a variety of activities, including
irrigation of crops, parks and golf courses, groundwater recharge
and industrial uses.
The 20-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Marketing provides
background information on water rights, types of transfers and
critical policy issues surrounding this topic. First published in
1996, the 2005 version offers expanded information on
groundwater banking and conjunctive use, Colorado River
transfers and the role of private companies in California’s
developing water market.
Order in bulk (25 or more copies of the same guide) for a reduced
fee. Contact the Foundation, 916-444-6240, for details.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the principles of IRWM,
its funding history and how it differs from the traditional water
management approach.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to California Water provides an
excellent overview of the history of water development and use in
California. It includes sections on flood management; the state,
federal and Colorado River delivery systems; Delta issues; water
rights; environmental issues; water quality; and options for
stretching the water supply such as water marketing and
conjunctive use. New in this 10th edition of the guide is a
section on the human need for water.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Nevada Water provides an
overview of the history of water development and use in Nevada.
It includes sections on Nevada’s water rights laws, the history
of the Truckee and Carson rivers, water supplies for the Las
Vegas area, groundwater, water quality, environmental issues and
today’s water supply challenges.
Seawater intrusion can harm groundwater quality in a variety of
places, both coastal and inland, throughout California.
Along the coast, seawater intrusion into aquifers is connected to overdrafting of
groundwater. Additionally, in the interior, groundwater
pumping can draw up salty water from ancient seawater isolated in
subsurface sediments.
Overdraft occurs when, over a period of years, more water is
pumped from a groundwater basin than is replaced from all sources
– such as rainfall, irrigation water, streams fed by mountain
runoff and intentional recharge. [See also Hydrologic Cycle.]
While many of its individual aquifers are not overdrafted,
California as a whole uses more groundwater than is replaced.
The treatment of groundwater— the primary source of drinking
water and irrigation water in many parts of the United States —
varies from community to community, and even from well to well
within a city depending on what contaminants the water contains.
In California, one-half of the state’s population drinks water
drawn from underground sources [the remainder is provided by
surface water].
Groundwater management is recognized
as critical to supporting the long-term viability of California’s
aquifers and protecting the
nearby surface waters that are connected to groundwater.
California has considered, but not implemented, a comprehensive
groundwater strategy many
times over the last century.
One hundred years ago, the California Conservation Commission
considered adding groundwater regulation into the Water
Commission Act of 1913. After hearings were held, it was
decided to leave groundwater rights out of the Water Code.
California, like most arid Western states, has a complex system
of surface water rights
that accounts for nearly all of the water in rivers and streams.
Groundwater banking is a process of diverting floodwaters or
other surface water into
an aquifer where it can be
stored until it is needed later. In a twist of fate, the space
made available by emptying some aquifers opened the door for the
banking activities used so extensively today.
When multiple parties withdraw water from the same aquifer,
groundwater pumpers can ask the court to adjudicate, or hear
arguments for and against, to better define the rights that
various entities have to use groundwater resources. This is known
as groundwater adjudication. [See also California
water rights and Groundwater Law.]
California’s enormous cache of underground water is a great
natural resource and has contributed to the state becoming the
nation’s top agricultural producer and leader in high-tech
industries.
Groundwater is also increasingly relied upon by growing cities
and thirsty farms, and it plays an important role in the future
sustainability of California’s overall water supply.
For something so largely hidden from view, groundwater is an
important and controversial part of California’s water supply
picture. How it should be managed and whether it becomes part of
overarching state regulation is a topic of strong debate.
In early June, environmentalists and Delta water agencies sued
the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the Kern
County Water Agency (KCWA) over the validity of the transfer of
the Kern Water Bank, a huge underground reservoir that supplies
water to farms and cities locally and outside the area. The suit,
which culminates a decade-long controversy involving multiple
issues of state and local jurisdictional authority, has put the
spotlight on groundwater banking – an important but controversial
water management practice in many areas of California.
Groundwater, out of sight and out of mind to most people, is
taking on an increased role in California’s water future.
Often overlooked and misunderstood, groundwater’s profile is
being elevated as various scenarios combine to cloud the water
supply outlook. A dry 2006-2007 water year (downtown Los Angeles
received a record low amount of rain), crisis conditions in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the mounting evidence of climate
change have invigorated efforts to further utilize aquifers as a
reliable source of water supply.
When you drink the water, remember the spring. – Chinese proverb
Water is everywhere. Viewed from outer space, the Earth radiates
a blue glow from the oceans that dominate its surface. Atop the
sea and land, huge clouds of water vapor swirl around the globe,
propelling the weather system that sustains life. Along the way,
water, which an ancient sage called “the noblest of elements,”
transforms from vapor to liquid and to solid form as it falls
from the atmosphere to the surface, trickles below ground and
ultimately returns skyward.
Traditionally treated as two separate resources, surface water
and groundwater are increasingly linked in California as water
leaders search for a way to close the gap between water demand
and water supply. Although some water districts have coordinated
use of surface water and groundwater for years, conjunctive use
has become the catchphrase when it comes to developing additional
water supply for the 21st century.
